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Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Yet another Magic thread by me, Shas'aia Toriia! 'Cause I'm sure you weren't sick of looking at me yet!All art by Uncle Festy. Worship him for his god like art skills.
Also, he takes requests. Sometimes. Usually he bites your head off if he isn't in the 'art' mood.

It's the 10th official Magic: the Gathering thread on Giantitp forums!
This is the place for everything regarding the game - rules questions, your own card creations, decks, reports, rants about recent sets/cards/rules changes, the storyline, favorite cards/colors/sets/characters/pros/articles, the absolute glory/terrible creation that is Elder Dragon Highlander Commander, or any other awesome Magical exploits.
And definitely don't be shy if you're new to the game or think about starting. We would love to bring more players in, and help you get started!

If you want, you can post decks and have them placed here in a list similar to the one below! Shoot me a PM if you're interested and I don't have my Ivory Mask.
The Deck Gallery:

That deck focuses on getting the kill as fast as possible, and is an extremely simple deck to play - I gave it to my mom, and she managed to beat me with it, twice out of three games. The other one was multiplayer, and did manage to take down somebody else before I did the same to her.
It has a very good record, wins most games it plays and consistenly trounces my Faerie deck.

Start the game off by playing Flamekin Harbinger to tutor up either Nova Chaser or the Soulstoke, depending on what you need more. Then play Smokebraider for some cheap mana. Play Incandescent Soulstoke turn three, and up to 3 Nova Chasers through the Soulstoke's ability turn 4 for the win.
If they somehow survive this, just champion Flamekin Harbinger, fling your Nova Chasers and Changeling Berserkers at the opponent. When they do, search up a new one and do it again! Vengeful Firebrand is great end game. He'll likely have haste from one of the many warriors in the deck, and his firebreathing effect quickly escalates from Smokebraider's ability.

Gameplay:
When playing this deck, it's important to survive the early game. Once you get into the late game, any deck without an abundance of counterspells will suddenly be faced with an onslaught of powerful spells. Between the 5 game-winners, one being a repeatable spell, the 4 Naya Charms, and the 3 Primal Commands and 4 Cone of Flames to control the game a bit, this deck should have no problem pushing through a late-game backbreaker. Maelstrom Archangel is there to help you push through some spells; after all, it's not very likely you'll be able to play two Ultimatums in one turn, is it?

In terms of your early game, the key to surviving is to play Sprouting Thrinax, Naya Charm, and Cone of Flame as much as possible to slow down your foe. In addition, don't be afraid to take a bit of damage; you can afford to go down to 10 or even 5 before you're really in dire straits. The Primal Commands can gain you some important life early on, and it's not uncommon to be casting Maelstrom Archangel on turn 5 if it's in your opener, so the Angel can act as a last-ditch blocker if need be. Garruk's Beast tokens are also extremely helpful in surviving to your big guns, and Garruk himself provides you some acceleration that can get you there faster.

Naya Charm is truly your ace in the hole. Acting as Regrowth, Lash Out, and a fourth of Cryptic Command is truly something amazing. However, don't be afraid to spend Naya Charm early on. If you get Wort up and running, you can recycle your Naya Charms with your other cards extremely easily.

Remember, the objective with this deck is to conspire ridiculous spells for ridiculous fun. If you're about to lose, don't be afraid to Conspire Conflux and show off your deck in a glorious fashion. It's all about making big explosions, after all!

The basic strategy is to play evasive creatures with nice CIP abilities, then bounce them with ninja to replay them again, gaining tons of card advantage. Save the instant counters for things you can't handle, like high cost spells that Spellstutter Sprite can't hit, or board-wiping spells. The deck has lots of disruption and can usually play pretty aggressively. Nearly every spell can potentially 2-for-1 the opponent, giving me control of the game thanks to my strong card advantage. It's a very cheap deck to build due to being made entirely of commons, yet I find that it's still a solid deck to play in other casual formats as well. Its biggest weaknesses appear to be board-sweeping spells and pingers, so my sideboard is built to accomidate either of those threats. Peppersmoke handles most pingers and can decimate casual aggro decks. Remove Soul is also good against aggro, while Negate is for control decks that have been popular lately. Echoing Truth is to stop pauper storm decks based on Empty the Warrens, and the Mistblade Shinobi is for keeping midrange creature decks off balance.

(Note: the circles of protection were common when printed in 7th edition, so they're legal for pauper.)

Anyway, I realized that most decks for pauper are creature-heavy, due to the lack of mass removal. So I built a deck designed to crush aggro strategies. I run a wealth of removal spells, some of which can earn card advantage. My creatures are few, but are versatile and are great both early and late game, oftentimes utilizing my excess mana to the fullest. The Kami of Ancient Law in the sideboard is mostly to switch in against creature-light decks as an early beater, or to replace Holy Light against white decks. I figure that if a deck is playing white, it's likely to be playing white enchantment-based removal like Oblivion Ring or Temporal Isolation, so the Kami would be great at keeping my other creatures clear of these answers.

What I'm still considering, though, is the removal suite. I like Fire at Will for its potential for card advantage, particularly against weenie swarms like Slivers. Unmake is also great simply for the lack of the attack/blocker clause. The Dawn Charms are there mostly for versatility, as I can usually think of a good use for it. I'm not sure if I should be maindecking the Holy Lights, though. So far, they've only been useful against pinger decks, Empty the Warrens, and certain elf builds. However, given that Storm may be one of the best pauper builds, Holy Light affords me with my best chance of trumping Empty the Warrens. But most of all, I'm debating Judge Unworthy. On one hand, having 8 removal spells that require attacking/blocking is kind of restrictive; on the other hand, it's my cheapest removal spell, and my only removal option for turn 2. The Scry is oftentimes a toss-up; getting rid of excess land is great, but I've had instances where I needed to draw another land, but can't put a land on top of my deck with Scry if I want to kill a creature. I guess Temporal Isolation is a possible substitute, but it's pretty lousy in the Silvers matchup, which is perhaps the most common deck played in the pauper casual room as of late.

I'm still debating whether Relic of Progenitus should be in the sideboard; perhaps I could use more aggro options to switch in against creature-light decks, even though those tend to be fewer in number for this format.

So, what does this deck do? At its core, this deck is made to abuse Mirror Sheen with various effects that can target me. Beneficial effects like Compulsive Research, Oona's Grace, and Walk the Aeons can be spread to both myself and my teammate, especially in MTGO 2HG, where turns are taken separately. Meanwhile, burn spells like Electrolyze, Cone of Flame, and Conflagrate can spread their damage to point just 1 damage at me, allowing me to copy them as well.

My plan is to lay down some beefy blockers and control the board with versatile burn while building up mana and drawing cards for both me and my partner. Lots of card drawing spells plus Drift of Phantasms allows me to quickly find Mirror Sheen, while Hinder (my counterspell of choice in extended) and Swerve protect me and my flagship enchantment. With Mirror Sheen on the board, most of my spells become super-charged. Eventually, I will seek to win the game with a huge, crazy turn. Most commonly, I'll flashback Conflagrate for just 2 mana, discarding my hand of 7-8 cards and targetting myself with just 1 point of its damage, then pump all of my mana into copying that huge Conflagrate. With 8 mana available and 7 cards in hand, that's 20 damage divided as I choose, perfect for eliminating all blockers for my partner's alpha strike, or just sending it all to the dome. Or I can copy Walk the Aeons (and buy it back) before this too. Either way, my other goal is to supercharge my partner's deck, which I hope will make the game very fun for both of us. Most players appreciate being given extra cards and turns, right?

I still have no idea what I would do for the sideboard, as that doesn't usually come up for 2HG, but it might matter if I take the deck out for a spin in 1-on-1 duels, where it'd play more like a combo deck with heavy control elements. I'm also not sure about a few individual choices. Should I run cheaper burn that can't synergize well with Mirror Sheen? Are more board sweepers necessary? Do I have enough defense to avoid being run over in the early game? Is my mana base stable enough to support UUU for Plumeveil and RR in Cone of Flame and Conflagrate, or should I cut the Cone of Flames? Is Cone of Flames even worth 5 mana? Is Swerve any good at all? (It can counter counterspells by changing their target!)

This deck is built around my personal favorite creature, Twilight Shepherd. It started out as a simple WUB blink deck, but then morphed into a toolbox-style deck revolving around 1-mana artifacts. Nearly every single card syngergizes with Twilight Shepherd. Any of the sacrificed artifacts can be returned to my hand with the angel's ability, evoke becomes absurd when the angel activates, CIP creatures play nicely with her, and wiping the board with Magus of the Disk tends to be rather one-sided when all my stuff comes back to me, including the Magus himself! But the star of the deck is Voyager Staff combined with Twilight Shepherd, which basically lets me pay 3 mana each turn to ensure that any permanent that goes to my graveyard that turn gets returned to my hand. That includes lands like Terramorphic Expanse and Flagstones of Trokair as well (hence the high number of basic lands to fetch). Mannequin and Momentary Blink both ensure that my angel is never rid of permanently, and Trinket Mage tutors for the Staff right when I need it, or for any other silver bullet artifact. The sideboard includes stuff like Relic of Progenitus, to hose even more strategies. Lack of artifact lands is due to anti-synergy with the Magus. It's a fun deck with an insane amount of resiliance, as that angel is almost impossible to ever get rid of permanently, thanks to the massive amount of blink and recursion in the deck.

Countersliver is a classic and effective Magic deck archetype that seeks to win by playing a few cheap, efficient threats to take the early game lead, then using permission and light removal elements to prevent the late-game from coming as you press your advantage. The archetype is named after the original version, which played Crystalline Sliver as its flagship creature.

Countersliver is a good example of an effective aggro-control deck. Your creatures are weaker than your opponent's best aggro creatures, and your removal and card advantage suite isn't nearly as strong as a dedicated control player's. What you do have, though, is tempo. You have superior early-game creatures to all but the best aggro decks, and you'll be shaving pieces off your opponent's life very quickly while trying to maintain your board advantage. Countersliver especially likes to prey on slower decks. Compare a Countersliver deck to a normal permission control deck. Against a mid-range deck, both are able to stall for several turns with their counterspells. However, while the permission deck is just buying time to play a big finisher, Countersliver will have a guy in play by turn 2, and attacking the opponent relentlessly while stalling for time. In other words, it has a tangible clock in play, which will likely win before the late-game hits.

Countersliver is normally weak against fast aggro decks with superior creatures. However, my personal build contains a few elements that help that matchup. First is the high number of first-striking creatures. Bant Sureblade and Deft Duelist make formidable blockers, easily dispatching lots of popular aggro creatures with high power but low toughness. Deft Duelist is also impossible to burn out of the way, making it a particularly impressive defender. Of course, both are also rather nasty on offense as well. Another nice card in the aggro matchup is Ethercaste Knight. 3 toughness means it can handle many early-game opposing creatures with ease, and it can lend power to my offense without ever having to tap. My favorite starting plays with this deck involve Esper Stormblade on turn 2, followed by Ethercaste Knight on turn 3 with one land up for Mana Tithe. I get to swing for 4 points of flying starting on turn 3, which can lead to a turn 7 win. With Ethercaste Knight blocking on the ground and a slew of countermagic and removal, I'm likely to win a damage race with just those two creatures.

The key to playing this deck is to not overextend with your creatures, and to keep mana open for counters available as often as possible, even if you aren't actually holding a counter. Exalted lets you finish games quickly without having to play many additional creatures. I prefer my fliers for attacking while keeping the first strikers back for defense to win the damage race against aggro. Of course, if you have a clear creature advantage, by all means attack en masse! Just be sure to have countermagic on hand in case they drop a big creature or removal spell. The good thing about this deck is that practically every single spell costs just 2 mana or less (I don't count the borderposts, as I usually pay their alternate cost), which means by turn 4 you can feasibly drop another threat and still have Mana Leak or Remove Soul ready. The deck desperately wants to hit UW by turn 2 (an opening hand that can't do this should be mulliganed), but with 4 Terramorphic Expanses and 4 Borderposts, that shouldn't be too hard to do, at least in my testing thus far.

If you want a sideboard, I would recommend trying out Steel of the Godhead. Against decks light on removal but heavy on aggro, this card is a total beating that almost ensures victory in the damage race. Just keep in mind that you can't enchant your Azorius First-wings or Deft Duelists. In such a matchups where I'd want Steel of the Godhead, such as against aggressive red decks, I'd probably swap out the griffins for Vedalken Outlander.

Oh Lawd, my now seasoned Magic: The Gathering (tm) mind cries when it sees all of these X1's! As some people can guess, this isn't the most... stable of decks.

But, boy howdy, is it fun to play! The creatures it can manufacturer are always loaded with power. This is mostly from all of the synergy. My enchanted creatures make other enchanted creatures more powerful (and in the case of magemarks, give them extra abilities!).

Plus, it's fairly fast. Personal clicks can attest to its ability of bringing out big baddies in a relatively short amount of time.

However, I could always do with making it faster. In fact, this deck is in dire need of optimization, so I will acquiesce to your greater abilities playground if you would deign to help me.

Fun Combinations; Double Vigor. Need I say more? Happy Song (Mayael's Aria) (at begining of upkeep, stuff, then win the game if you control creature with power 20 or greater) combined with Mossbridge Troll (tap a bunch of creatures, Mossbridge Troll gets +20/+20 til end of turn.
Mycoloth.
Another Mycoloth.
Spellbreaker Behemoth's to stop your big things from getting countered.
Spearbreaker Behemoth to stop them getting killed.
Vigor to make them tougher.
Hamletback Goliath+Mycoloth. I spawn more Saprolings. My Hamletback gets bigger.

To start off with this deck, you want to either strip their hand away with Gerrard's Veridct or search for something good with Demonic Tutor. Once you have Graveborn muse in play, just start accumalating card advantage. If they try to attack, prevent the damage with Oriss, or block with Forbidding Watchtower. Finish off the game with Liliana Vess or Divinity of Pride. Above all, though, don't be afraid to Wrath often. With 4 wrath effects and 6 tutors, you can always get more.

Lastly, there is a soft lock in this deck. See if you can find what it is.

The basic premise of the deck is to use the triggered come into play or leaves play effects on creatures, repeatedly, in order to bring about an effective soft lock on the game through denial. This is achieved through taking two keywords abilities (Evoke and Persist)... and breaking them soundly over your knee.

The core of the deck is the interaction between Cauldron of Souls (the only card in the deck that gives creatures Persist) and Elemental creatures with Evoke alternative casting costs. In response to the Evoke's triggered effect, you tap Cauldron of Souls to give the Evoked creature Persist. It leaves play, then returns to play, causing its triggered come into play ability to go on the stack a second time, for no additional mana cost.

Example: If I evoke a Mulldrifter for 2U, when it comes into play, I draw two cards. Since I paid the Evoke cost, the triggered effect goes on the stack. I give it Persist via Cauldron of Souls, and when it comes into play a second time, I draw two more cards.

Example 2: The interaction between Spitebellows and Cauldron of Souls is fundamentally the same, except that the creature's ability triggers when it leaves play, rather than comes into play. However, when Persist brings Spitebellows back into play, it has a zero toughness courtesy of its -1/-1 counter from Persist, sending it cheerfully back to the graveyard a second time, allowing for either 12 damage to be done to one creature, or 6 damage to be done to two separate creatures.

The typical play of the deck leaves it feeling like its ramping a little slowly. Turns 1-5, you'll probably only have played an Armillary Sphere, Cloudstone Curio, Cauldron of Souls, and land. ***NOTE*** This deck likes its mana, and digging up lands with the Armillary Sphere is crucial.

Once turn 6 hits, however, you'll be causing some serious hurt, having surprisingly rapid, effective tools at your disposal during your turn. Mournwhelk empties your opponent's hand, Shriekmaw and Spitebellows tear down your opponent's creatures, while Stingscourger stalls out their creatures. Supreme Exemplar is the only huge beater in the deck, though clearing the opposing board, casting a Spitebellows (not Evoking), and then giving it +2/+0 and Haste via Inner-Flame Acolyte (if not +4/+0) can give you a suitable beater as well. Otherwise, your damage comes from lightweight, evasive creatures like Shriekmaw and Mulldrifter.

This deck isn't especially meant to play against terribly competitive players, but it *can* perform against moderately fast decks. The difference is that it moves slightly slower, and loses out on creatures, because instead of holding on to your Evoke creatures, you'll be playing them in to deal with threats on board. I've got a list of cards that I personally intend to use to tinker with the deck even further, but I'll leave the deck *as is* for the purpose of posting it. I want people to be able to tinker with it, and the deck *does* work well in its current form.

The deck also has a number of specific weaknesses, none of which should be terribly worried about. It's meant to be a fun deck... for you. It won't be fun for them.

Please include lots of info on how to play the deck so that others can partake in the fun that is whatever deck you have destroyed the Multiverse with.
Also, it should be noted that this list was maintained by Squark, tgva (that me!) and Johnny Blade before Shas.
Also, if anyone wants to drop/update any of these decks, let me know.

List of MtG-related websites put together by Johnny Blades and others:

Spoiler

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The official site. From here you can reach:
The page for Magic Online, if you want to give it a try. Note that, while you have to pay/trade for cards, there are bots who give them away for free. I don't have any experience with this, but there are people posting in this thread that do.The DCI, for organized play.Gatherer, WotC's card search.

magiccards.info, another place to waste lots of time browsing through cards. It doesn't have the user ratings and comments of Gatherer, but lists the prices of several online vendors and, surprisingly, has more card images. The interface is also better in my opinion.

MTGSalvation. That place has a lot of stuff, including a wiki, a huge forum, and many articles of varying quality. They also spoil all the cards of the next set well in advance, so this is where we'll usually get future cards from.

StarCityGames - they make you pay for much of their newer content, but what you can get for free is certainly good enough.

Elder Dragon Highlander, the official page. Always up to date and it has a forum about this popular variant multiplayer format as well. If you want to learn even more about the format, go here!

Le Bestiaire, an online draft simulator. It gives you some pretty odd ratings sometimes, but at least there is actual feedback.

Magic Workstation, a program for...a lot of things, including collection management and online play. Supports more TCGs than just Magic. There's a freeware version available.

Cockatrice, an other program for over-the-web Magic playing for no cost. Also has card images built in. Generally updates pretty frequently.

TC Decks, where you can see which decks have tournament success. The decks are essentially named by the people who play them, and if you're looking for, say, Legacy decks, you'll soon find out that not all tournaments are really at Pro Tour level, but this is still an invaluable site for anyone who wants to keep up with the tournament scene.

The Mana Drain, more forums, this time for people looking into Vintage.

Tapped Out, a deck building and critique community. Build any number of decks and put them up for review/critique/comment/display. Or, keep them private. They also have pretty graphic representations of your mana curve, colour costs and colour generation.

http://www.highlandermagic.info/ The site for German Rules highlander. It's a 100-card singleton format, but the rules are rather different from EDH. They're more in line with the normal rules, and the banlist is made with a more competitive mindset in mind.

http://deckstats.net/ Calculates mana curve, compares color spread to manabase colors, calculates prices for the deck as well as some other functions. It can handle MWSDeck files and can also save decks pasted into it in the format.

When building a deck, sorting your cards is very important. While the following advice applies mainly to Highlander formats (specifically Commander), you may find it useful in other formats.

The largest problem I’ve observed in deckbuilding is cutting cards. We all know that you have the best odds when you play the smallest number of cards. The difference may seem small, but every difference matters. When you’re trying to remove cards from your deck, you are trying to find the cards you don’t need. However, if your methods of sorting are inefficient, it’s very hard to see what exactly you “don’t need” in your list. I mean, looking at a random pile of 80 cards, which 20 cards don’t you need? You couldn’t know without knowing some aspect of those cards. Sorting allows you to classify your cards by some useful characteristic, so that you can tell whether or not you do have parts that are in excess of what you need or cards that you actually just don’t need.

While there are many methods of sorting, I think the first method of sorting everyone is most familiar with is Type Sorting. This is where you sort your deck list by whatever card types you happen to have. The most common is Land, Creatures, and Non-Creatures. While it is a useful rudimentary step, this form of sorting is fundamentally flawed. Most of the time, this doesn’t help you. For example, let’s take two cards that share a type: Sakura-Tribe Elder and Woodfall Primus. Now, obviously these are both Green creatures. But that’s where the similarity ends. One of these cards is a land-accelerator only pretending to be a creature for long enough to block, while the other is a huge 6/6 that eats a permanent. These things are not very similar. However, a sort by Card Type puts these cards in the same classification category. On the other side, Flame Slash and Flametongue Kavu don’t share a card type, but it’s hard to deny you wouldn’t use both to kill creatures given the option. These cards would be in totally different parts of your list, though!

It is much easier to see a flaw if cards are sorted in a different manner. The manner that I suggest is the Function Sort. Sort all your cards by their intended function in your deck. For example, Sakura-Tribe Elder is a card you play for Mana Acceleration, so I sort it into the Mana Acceleration section. Woodfall Primus ends up in my Kills Non-Creatures secton. Both Flame Slash and Flametongue Kavu end up in my Kills Creatures section. This method allows you to see the cards by the purpose they serve in your deck, rather than by an arbitrary category. (You could sort your Lands this way, too, but I consider “Land” to be a Function, as lands are very special cards.) Some example categories pretty much every deck should be considering:

Win Conditions

Mana Acceleration/Fixing

Card Drawing

Library Manipulation

Kills Creatures

Kills Non-Creatures

Kills Lots of Stuff (Wraths)

Now, you can also condense those categories if you want. For example, “Kills Creatures” and “Kills Non-Creatures” could just be listed as “Kills Stuff” if it’s not really significant that you have a certain spread.

(I’ll add an example, but this is the bare-bones of the suggestion.)

There are many, many, many cards that reference this title. It was time. We went for the Blaze.

Also, please let us know if you want something in the first post added, edited or removed.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Or you use Wizard's latest uber broken, super expensive mythic rare that Donald Trump has to take a loan out to buy that costs 0 and allows you to pay X life to gain 2 times X mana of any color combination of your choice that can be used to pay the cost of everything, even threads.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Can't be any worse then me. I have a deck that runs four coppies of Tinker. Yes, I did just say four copies of TINKER, a card thats banned in basicly every format. Then again, in my playgroup I am known for playing extremely annoying/hate-worthy decks so what you did can't be any worse then some of the stuff I have pulled....and if you have somebody using money cards like that they I personally believe your justified in what your doing. Using strategy, dastardly deck desgines and evil combos is perfectly fair in my book. You found the combo and/or made the deck, so you have a right to use it. Using your upper-class spoiled brat status to buy your way to victory? Not so much. So your totally justified in using it, though remember....this is advice from the guy whom is dubbed lawful evil by friends and plays a deck with 4 coppies of tinker...so I may not be the most qualified person to go to...

Oh, and since we're on an artifact binge, I may as well post up the infamous Tinker deck for the lolz..

Yeah, a nasty, nasty deck indeed. Oh, and this is also my archenemy deck of choice. It pairs nicely with the scheme deck from "Assemble the Doomsday Machine." Also, don't tell me 22 lands are too few. This deck runs fine with 22 lands, mostly due to all the absurd excell options it has.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by Maho-Tsukai

Can't be any worse then me. I have a deck that runs four coppies of Tinker. Yes, I did just say four copies of TINKER, a card thats banned in basicly every format. Then again, in my playgroup I am known for playing extremely annoying/hate-worthy decks so what you did can't be any worse then some of the stuff I have pulled....and if you have somebody using money cards like that they I personally believe your justified in what your doing. Using strategy, dastardly deck desgines and evil combos is perfectly fair in my book. You found the combo and/or made the deck, so you have a right to use it. Using your upper-class spoiled brat status to buy your way to victory? Not so much. So your totally justified in using it, though remember....this is advice from the guy whom is dubbed lawful evil by friends and plays a deck with 4 coppies of tinker...so I may not be the most qualified person to go to.

Haha, well basically it got to the point where there was NO turn order at all. And nobody could draw. Also, all my stuff was indestructable and my general could snipe out any creature.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Sounds fun. Do you happen to have the fabled "Great Machine" infinent combo in your deck? If so, have you ever mannaged to get it out? I always wanted to play in a game in which somebody was actually able to get that combo online just due to how ridicilous it would be to see it do it's thing.

Or you use Wizard's latest uber broken, super expensive mythic rare that Donald Trump has to take a loan out to buy that costs 0 and allows you to pay X life to gain 2 times X mana of any color combination of your choice that can be used to pay the cost of everything, even threads.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Frankelstein: It looks like your deck isn't 99 cards + Savra. Maybe I can't judge size just by looking. I didn't count. Also, don't include Savra as part of your list, put her at the top and label her your General. If you are playing Commander, Savra won't start in your starting deck, she'll hang out in the Command Zone until you cast her. The rest of your deck should consist of 99 cards. It's generally better to sort that way, trust me.

First thing I would suggest is to adjust your mana. You definitely either want to be playing like 15+ non-basic lands or a few specific ones. I'd suggest you play more if you aren't trying to do tricky things. Some good ones you should be able to find pretty easily include variouskindsoffetches, and someanswers. There are also tons of other lands I can list, like theduallandsyoumaywant, the Black mana machine of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers, as well as a bunch of rarelandsthatdoawesomestuff. I also suggest increasing your land count from 36 to at least 39. It will make sense in a minute.

You are playing a lot of early drops. I count 25 creatures that cost 3 or less. Commander is not the kind of format where you generally want to do this. You can, there's nothing wrong with it, but you don't need to. Your starting life total is 40. You have more time to build up. And your early turns should definitely be spent playing more innocuous things, cards like Rampant Growth and Sensei's Divining Top. During the early turns, you want to be building up so that you can drop much larger, more game-changing things than Odious Trow. The reason you want to up your land count is so that you can cast awesome spells like Praetor's Counsel, Sheoldred, Whispering One, or Symbiotic Wurm, Penumbra Wurm, and other such fun bomby/splashy cards. Oh, I forgot the big ones, Reiver Demon, Plague Wind, and Decree of Pain. You will have the time to cast these cards in a general Commander game, because you should have both mana acceleration to get there and the time to draw the necessary lands. It should be a multiplayer game that provides the situation for the casting of at least a few of these cards (all of which are awesome, by the way).

Now, looking specifically at your deck, I notice you have fairly few cards that constantly produce tokens. Your Savra deck should (and apparently does) do a lot of sacrificing. You probably want some creatures to sacrifice, and you don't have great streams of creatures with which to do so without some token generation. May I suggest Worm Harvest? Not repetitive, but a nice source of guys to send to the grave. Anyways, you probably want a way to repetitively produce tokens to sacrifice.

In my experience, in EDH, big dumb creatures aren't that useful. For example, there are probably better ways to sacrifice a creature than Bloodthrone Vampire, Carrion Feeder, or Vampire Aristocrat. For example, may I suggest Greater Good, one of the best Green cards ever? How about Malevolent Awakening? Archdemon of Unx seems fun, as does Attrition. There's also Mind Slash, Sadistic Hypnotist, Quatmire Druid, Stronghold Assassin... even Perilous Forays may not be totally terrible (having a lot of mana is awesome in EDH). Also, Victimize is such an unreal card. You don't want to just play creatures that only attack and block, unless they are very, very, very good at it. You want your creatures to do something else, because you want to be getting good value out of them. Creatures like Shriekmaw and Nekrataal are sweet because you get to kill something and have a decent creature out of the deal. Even larger creatures should be doing something special, in my opinion. You just don't want random dudes like Noxious Hatchling.

Similarly, I wouldn't spend too many slots dealing with singular target creatures unless you're netting value. There should be a lot of mass-destruction going around (and you should be playing some of it, especially Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone, as well as the reason you play GB, Pernicious Deed), so you don't need to play too much (though having it is far from bad). Putrefy is good because it's flexible. Go For The Throat is a bit less so. Bone Splinters is even worse because it's massively disadvantageous. You want to be playing Nekrataal-effects, or creatures that kill when they die, like Abyssal Gatekeeper. There are tons of Black creatures that can do this, and you can even play Artifact creatures like Duplicant if you get stuck.

That's just a few suggestions. I didn't even mention many of the Artifacts you could consider, for example. And there's so many directions you could go. Commander is fun because of that. I would definitely take to heart the main elements of Commander as a format, though:

Mana Acceleration and Land Search are Key

Creatures should do more than just attack and block

Kill permanents besides creatures

Go Big or Go Home

I hope you enjoy yourself playing some Commander! I suggest purchasing one of the Commander decks (probably Devour for Power for this particular deck) to get some good cards and perhaps more of a feel for what kinds of cards this format is all about.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Bandil's annoyed rant...

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I was playing a casual Emperor game a few days ago, and I was testing this black deck. I'd post it, but you'd laugh .

During the game, the guard across from me played a card (Can't remember which) that is a key component of their deck. I cast a Doom Blade and a Soul Reap to clear out his creatures. I was trying to keep his combo out and have free swings.

Since the key component was a 1/1, our emperor started yelling and calling me terrible at magic since I doom bladed a 1/1. Chiefly since their emperor played Vorinclex, even though I still wouldn't have been able to destroy it yet.

Now, even though I should have saved it, what made me even more annoyed was the Emperor and the other guard were both getting mad at me. The other guard had a deck that really didn't work, and the emperor had 1 mana . Why he kept that opening hand? It had a Karn. Nevertheless, he conceded after not being able to play anything due to a lack of mana...

Also, Maho... You sound like a very cruel person... I like it.

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Originally Posted by LaZodiac

Look apon me, mighty Posid-Eon, ruler of the waves and saviour of people. Watch as I stumble about on dry land humoursly, AND TREMBLE!

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

If the key component was for a major combo, killing it was the right play. Even if Vorinclex is out, you, he's merely dangerous. An Infinite Combo will probably kill you and your emperor in one fell swoop. Killing the other dude... Depends on what it was.

EDIT: Also, If I'm building an Intet, the Dreamer EDH deck, should I run stuff like Earthquake and savage twister, even if they're wasted cards if Intet turns them over?

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Bandil, thanks for the complement.

Anyway, I am still awating the EDH starters, espcially the R/W/B one. I already have planes for my "wrath of tarel" EDH deck that will combind Tariel's reanimation effect with loads and loads of mass board wipes and cards that love fat graveyards like Debtor's Knell, Necromancer's Covenant, Scion of Darkness ect...Heck, maybe even Mortivore will find himself among the deck's ranks. If only there was some obscure, old burn spell that dealt damage to a player equal to the number of cards in their graveyard...

As for Earthquake and Savage Twister, I would say add them. A board wipe is a board wipe and board wipes are good, espcially in EDH. Though take this with a grain of salt as my "signature card" is damnation.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by Squark

If the key component was for a major combo, killing it was the right play. Even if Vorinclex is out, you, he's merely dangerous. An Infinite Combo will probably kill you and your emperor in one fell swoop. Killing the other dude... Depends on what it was.

EDIT: Also, If I'm building an Intet, the Dreamer EDH deck, should I run stuff like Earthquake and savage twister, even if they're wasted cards if Intet turns them over?

How much library manipulation do you have? If you have plenty, running them is fine. If you don't have much, I'd look at other sweepers, but would still run them if you're out of other sweeper options and still need more.

Timesifter seemed really fun to me, and in fact it was fun and hilarious to most of us, but two players got really upset and bitchy.

Is that really that bad, considering one of the players who got bitchy spends **** tons of money on cards and has all uber tournament grade decks?

Arcum Dagson is a pretty comborific general. He'll get quite a bit of hate. I mean once a Darksteel Forge is on the table why not go get a nevinyrral's disk and blow everything up, every turn? Another pretty hard lock is Mycosynth lattice and March of the Machines assuming you have some artifact mana out.
Both of these are pretty easy to get with Arcum. With enough fodder its pretty easy to do all at once too if you get a Puppet Strings or something earlier.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by Maho-Tsukai

Bandil, thanks for the complement.

Anyway, I am still awating the EDH starters, espcially the R/W/B one. I already have planes for my "wrath of tarel" EDH deck that will combind Tariel's reanimation effect with loads and loads of mass board wipes and cards that love fat graveyards like Debtor's Knell, Necromancer's Covenant, Scion of Darkness ect...Heck, maybe even Mortivore will find himself among the deck's ranks. If only there was some obscure, old burn spell that dealt damage to a player equal to the number of cards in their graveyard...

As for Earthquake and Savage Twister, I would say add them. A board wipe is a board wipe and board wipes are good, espcially in EDH. Though take this with a grain of salt as my "signature card" is damnation.

Protip: With Intet, run a Sylvan Library. Easy mana cost, and it basically gives you Scry 3 right before your draw. Which lets you choose exactly what card you want to pull via Intet.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

On the subject of Commander: right now, I have a Jhoira deck that's gradually evolved from cheating out bunches of big stuff with her to a U/r control deck that occasionally cheats out a Time Stretch, Thought Reflection, or Aeon Chronicler with her. I'm thinking of getting one of the Commander decks, probably the UGB one, and making two decks; a U/R combo deck with Niv-Mizzet as the general, and a U/g/b deck with ramp and lots of big, powerful spells.

For the U/r deck - I'll have Niv-Mizzet, Curiosity, and Ophidian Eye to combo with him. I'll have Vesuvan Shapeshifter and Brine Elemental for the Pickles lock. I'll have Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch, Splinter Twin, and Kiki-Jiki for that combo. Any other notable simple combos I should put in?

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by tgva8889

*Amazing Advice*

Wow, thanks for all of this advice.

I can definitely see myself adding more nonbasic lands (aside from some of the better fetch lands), and also replacing Go for the Throat and Bone Splinters with bigger, better board wipes (I should be able to procure Plague Wind and/or Reiver Demon with little difficulty). One thing I greatly enjoy about this deck, is that I can wipe the board simply by sacrificing whatever I have with Savra, Grave Pact, or Butcher of Malakir in play.

My reasoning behind lots of tiny creatures is hopefully having a creature advantage, mass sacrificing into an easy outlet (this is why I like Bloodthrone, Aristocrat, etc.), and swinging in hard. I do need some source of significant card advantage to work for that, though, and Greater Good seems to be perfect for that

(And OH MAH GAWD, I just realized Woebringer Demon may actually work in this deck )

As far as token production goes, the best source of that I have currently is Creakwood Liege (which I can get with Fleshwrither). Golgari Germanation and Ooze Garden also work somewhat at token generators, to an extent (since in an ideal situation, they'll net me creature advantage). I'm not entirely sure about Worm Harvest, seeing as I don't know how many lands I'll be putting into the graveyard (even with more sac-lands). If it turns out that I have more, that'll definitely be making it in.

A lot of the sacrifice outlets you recommended me seem great (<3 Malevolent Awakening), but I'm not sure I'll be able to get my hands on them. As far as sacrifice outlets go, I think I'll keep the basic structure I have now, and be on the lookout for something better.

So, I decided to take out some of the more underwhelming 1 and 2 drops, and a couple of the "dead weight" creatures that I only had in there for their green/black status. I ended up adding many of the larger drops that were recommended, as well as some better board wipes.

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-1 Festering Goblin
-1 Deathgreeter
-1 Carrion Feeder
-1 Starved Rusalka
-1 Nezumi Bone Reader
-1 Skirk Ridge Exhumer
-1 Gazra's Assassin (I liked Shriekmaw better)
-1 Canker Abomination
-1 Noxious Hatchling
-1 Go For the Throat
-1 Bone Splinters
+1 Cultivate (thought I had one in there already)
+1 Woebringer Demon
+1 Reiver Demon
+1 Woodfall Primus (I knew I had one lying around somehwere)
+1 Plague Wind
+1 Abyssal Gatekeeper
+1 Archdemon of Unx (How did I miss Demons as far as the "Sacrificial" theme went?)
+1 Greater Good
+1 Brutalizer Exarch
+1 Sheoldred (I have no idea how I missed this obvious synergy XD)
+1 Forest (not as many as recommended, but there were no other clear cuts. I expect to play around with land count a bit more as I continue to learn the deck).

-Somenumberofbasiclands
+Somenumberoffunlands

Updated Decklist (out of order, because mtgdeckbuilder isn't the best at that)

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by Maho-Tsukai

Anyway, I am still awating the EDH starters, espcially the R/W/B one. I already have planes for my "wrath of tarel" EDH deck that will combind Tariel's reanimation effect with loads and loads of mass board wipes and cards that love fat graveyards like Debtor's Knell, Necromancer's Covenant, Scion of Darkness ect...Heck, maybe even Mortivore will find himself among the deck's ranks. If only there was some obscure, old burn spell that dealt damage to a player equal to the number of cards in their graveyard...

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by BladeofOblivion

Ah, Eternal Dominion. Probably the only one of the Epic spells that isn't guaranteed to royally screw you over.

No, Enduring Ideal also doesn't. If you run an enchantment deck, that is. Fetch out several Paradox Hazes, and on your 5 upkeeps search out things like Form of the Dragon, Ivory Mask, Priviliged Positions, Genju of the Realms, and other useful, powerful, enchantments.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by DMofDarkness

No, Enduring Ideal also doesn't. If you run an enchantment deck, that is. Fetch out several Paradox Hazes, and on your 5 upkeeps search out things like Form of the Dragon, Ivory Mask, Priviliged Positions, Genju of the Realms, and other useful, powerful, enchantments.

You left out a couple of the best lockdown enchantments - Solitary Confinement and Dovescape.

I remember having an Enduring Ideal deck for PbP play on the old WotC forums. This was before I knew what the good enchantments to get were, so I would get Honden of Seeing Winds when I first cast it, then get Words of Worship on the first upkeep to stablize, then get more Hondens and Words. That deck also had one of my best starts ever; it went like this:
Turn 1 - land, Birds of Paradise.
Turn 2 - land, Birds, 2*Llanowar Elves.
Turn 3 - land, Enduring Ideal.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Originally Posted by Frankelshtein

Wow, thanks for all of this advice.

Not at all! I'm glad someone new has shown an interest in Commander!

Originally Posted by Frankelshtein

I can definitely see myself adding more nonbasic lands (aside from some of the better fetch lands), and also replacing Go for the Throat and Bone Splinters with bigger, better board wipes (I should be able to procure Plague Wind and/or Reiver Demon with little difficulty). One thing I greatly enjoy about this deck, is that I can wipe the board simply by sacrificing whatever I have with Savra, Grave Pact, or Butcher of Malakir in play.

Well, if you choose to play fewer nonbasics, there are some cool lands that still work well. Terrain Generator and Thawing Glaciers, for example, are nice, and if you have a ton of basics, they're pretty awesome. If you also switch to snow lands, Scrying Sheets provides even more bonus!

I should correct myself. Go For The Throat is far from terrible. It's not amazing (I mean, when you can play Shriekmaw, Bone Shredder, Faceless Butcher, and more...), but it is a good card to at least have the option of playing. That said, there are better.

You may not need nearly as many board wipes as I suggested. I mean, I have a White deck, so I play like 10 in one deck, but that's really up to you. Board Wipes are much better in terms of value than single-target removal in general.

Originally Posted by Frankelshtein

My reasoning behind lots of tiny creatures is hopefully having a creature advantage, mass sacrificing into an easy outlet (this is why I like Bloodthrone, Aristocrat, etc.), and swinging in hard. I do need some source of significant card advantage to work for that, though, and Greater Good seems to be perfect for that

The thing is, how large do you expect a Bloodthrone or Aristocrat to be? It won't be that much larger than Symbiotic Wurm or Penumbra Wurm or Woodfall Primus or Reiver Demon or Lord of the Pit or... whatever. There are too many to suggest. And you'll be suffering severe card disadvantage from them, which is even more compounded by the fact that you're playing against more players. Unless you sacrifice a lot of tokens, which you don't really quite have the way to generate yet. There are better sacrifice outlets if all you want is a sacrifice outlet. Tiny creatures in EDH should be doing something really cool and useful (like Eternal Witness), otherwise it's generally better to go bigger. I mean, Bloodthrone Vampire is all well and good, but if I'm gonna toss my guys into a larger one I'm doing it with Fallen Angel or Mortivore or something sweet like that.

As far as token production goes, the best source of that I have currently is Creakwood Liege (which I can get with Fleshwrither). Golgari Germanation and Ooze Garden also work somewhat at token generators, to an extent (since in an ideal situation, they'll net me creature advantage). I'm not entirely sure about Worm Harvest, seeing as I don't know how many lands I'll be putting into the graveyard (even with more sac-lands). If it turns out that I have more, that'll definitely be making it in.

The thing about Worm Harvest is 1) Only G/B decks can play it and I've been wondering if it's good and 2) If you have discard outlets or pretty much any way to toss excess lands in the 'yard, it can turn all your lands into a large number of worms (even just 4 is pretty good, since they're Green/Black tokens), which you can then use to fuel sacrifice shenanigans. Worth a try. Probably not amazing, though. I just like the card.

A lot of the sacrifice outlets you recommended me seem great (<3 Malevolent Awakening), but I'm not sure I'll be able to get my hands on them. As far as sacrifice outlets go, I think I'll keep the basic structure I have now, and be on the lookout for something better.

My best suggestion is to play a lot, see what you like and what isn't pulling its weight. Your play group may not be like mine, and we may have different experiences with the same cards.

So, I decided to take out some of the more underwhelming 1 and 2 drops, and a couple of the "dead weight" creatures that I only had in there for their green/black status. I ended up adding many of the larger drops that were recommended, as well as some better board wipes.

I do suggest that if you're going to up the curve, you play more lands. I worry that your land count won't be enough to cast the awesome spells you just added, and as you don't have that much real acceleration, I'm not sure you'll have enough. For reference, my Sedris EDH deck plays 40 lands and 10 cards that either make mana or find more lands, as well as I think 8-10 cards that draw additional cards, and I will run into games where my mana stops at 7 for many turns. The thing about EDH is that you should always have at least something to do with your mana (cast your General), so it's not that terrible to have too many lands. A lot of your spells should be kicking butt when you cast them anyways.

I'd like to thank you again for the amazing advice. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to look my deck over, and it's looking a lot better now.

Also! Gatherer is a great tool. I used it to find most of the cards I suggested. I definitely suggest taking a look if you're looking to vamp up your deck. There are tons of utility creatures I didn't even get to suggest that you might find uses for.

Re: Magic the Gathering X: Deal X damage to target thread.

Speaking of EDH, do any of you have any advice on how to cut down EDH decks to the right size? I'm working on a B/W EDH deck with Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter as the general, and it currently has 83 non-land cards. Are there any tricks to cutting cards that'll make it easier?

Also, have any of you seen the prices that Starcitygames is charging for EDH singles? I personally think that some of them are a bit high. And interestingly enough, when I added up the prices of the cards in each deck (including the non EDH only cards, but not including cards worth under $1.00), Political Puppets turned out to have the most valuable cards in it, not Devour for Power. Chaos Warp and Flutterstorm are both priced at $20.00, and they're in Political Puppets. I have no how accurate the added up prices I got were, but Political Puppets beat Devour for Power by about $23.00.

Well, you don't need to go overboard, unless you have lots of ways to spend excess mana. 24 is a lot. That said, none of the cards you have listed are expressly bad mana accelerants. It really depends on a lot of things, like your General, your game plan, what kinds of deck manipulation you have available, and what your "curve" looks like. You are playing Blue, which means you should have good card drawing/selection cards, so your mana should be even better than most decks.

I suggest cutting the ones vulnerable to artifact destruction, like Spectral Searchlight and the Signets, because they'll probably become collateral damage when you need to drop an Oblivion Stone, and you'll wish you just had lands instead. Rampant Growth is still awesome, and if you're playing Duals you can always play other, similar cards like Farseek, Nature's Lore, and Skyshroud Claim (which is awesome). I'm not a fan of Dreamstone Hedron or Gilded Lotus in Green decks because they're worse accelerants than most of the Green land-search cards (they're expensive and prone to being destroyed). Since you're playing Blue you also probably don't need the card draw.

Expedition Map is good only if you have specific lands you're searching for. On the other hand, if you have specific lands you're searching for, it's the best card ever. I still have to find space in Darien, King of Kjeldor's deck for it.

Originally Posted by Silviya

Speaking of EDH, do any of you have any advice on how to cut down EDH decks to the right size? I'm working on a B/W EDH deck with Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter as the general, and it currently has 83 non-land cards. Are there any tricks to cutting cards that'll make it easier?

Well, how is your deck sorted? It's best to sort by card function, so that you can see whether you have, for example, too many counterspells or Wraths or whatnot, rather than just by Creatures and Non-Creature Spells and Lands. From there, it just comes down to making the painful decision to cut cards and going with the flow. It really is the hardest part of the game. It's why I prefer playing fewer colors in EDH, personally. I may be able to provide suggestions if you can provide a list of cards on the chopping block. There are definitely cards you should never ever cut from a list (like Debtor's Knell in BW). Take out the 20 or so of those cards and put up a list of cards you're thinking of cutting and I think some people here can give you a hand.